Text well, eat better: WeChat enters the online food delivery business

Craving for your favourite takeaway cuisine? WeChat now delivers in seven markets.

The popular mobile-messaging service of mainland internet giant Tencent has expanded into the food delivery business through a partnership with e-commerce start-up foodpanda.

This marks a new milestone for Tencent as its so-called online-to-offline service capabilities now extend outside the mainland.

Users of WeChat, known as Weixin on the mainland, can now browse nearby restaurants, receive exclusive promotional offers and order food through the app in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and India.

"We see this partnership with foodpanda as an extension of giving our customers what they want," Poshu Yeung, the vice-president at Tencent's international business group, said yesterday.

WeChat, which has 468 million active monthly users worldwide, has steadily grown its services beyond messaging and mobile games.